Ok. This made me laugh.
I was thinking are there smaller interventions that I could convince many people to take up. For instance, I want to look into 100 happy days, but depending on how effective it is, widespread proselytizing of similar tolls may be a cheap way to raise a lot of utility.
That said, I was thinking today, that If I were given long term direct contact with a willing student, I probably could teach him/her to live in Joy (I'm thinking of stoic philosophy and Buddhist non-attachment, plus all the behaviors I've discovered or invented to help me live intentionally). I've long thought that I should wight a book called Techniques for Intentional Living. Hmmm...I suppose I could open a personal advisory business. It would fit in well with the other work I do. However, I don't think one-on-one consultation is a good plan for high impact.
So, you could call yourself a "happiness advisor", read a few books about happiness, give people around you ideas how to improve their lives... and perhaps at the beginning just ask them for voluntary donations if they feel your ideas have improved their lives. Also ask them for some kind of written feedback, which you will use as an advertising later.
I should note that this isn't far off from what the CFAR is aiming at. Ultimately, rationality should convert to accomplishment of one's goals, and if one's goals are well chosen (which may or may not also fall under the umbrella of rationality?), accomplishment should convert to satisfaction.
Happy New Year, everyone!
In the past few months I've been thinking several thoughts that all seem to point in the same direction:
1) People who live in developed Western countries usually make and spend much more money than people in poorer countries, but aren't that much happier. It feels like we're overpaying for happiness, spending too much money to get a single bit of enjoyment.
2) When you get enjoyment from something, the association between "that thing" and "pleasure" in your mind gets stronger, but at the same time it becomes less sensitive and requires more stimulus. For example if you like sweet food, you can get into a cycle of eating more and more food that's sweeter and sweeter. But the guy next door, who's eating much less and periodically fasting to keep the association fresh, is actually getting more pleasure from food than you are! The same thing happens when you learn to deeply appreciate certain kinds of art, and then notice that the folks who enjoy "low" art are visibly having more fun.
3) People sometimes get unrealistic dreams and endlessly chase them, like trying to "make it big" in writing or sports, because they randomly got rewarded for it at an early age. I wrote a post about that.
I'm not offering any easy answers here. But it seems like too many people get locked in loops where they spend more and more effort to get less and less happiness. The most obvious examples are drug addiction and video gaming, but also "one-itis" in dating, overeating, being a connoisseur of anything, striving for popular success, all these things follow the same pattern. You're just chasing after some Skinner-box thing that you think you "love", but it doesn't love you back.
Sooo... if you like eating, give yourself a break every once in a while? If you like comfort, maybe get a cold shower sometimes? Might be a good idea to make yourself the kind of person that can get happiness cheaply.
Sorry if this post is not up to LW standards, I typed it really quickly as it came to my mind.